


Life Isn't Always a Walk in the Park

by lucybeetle



Category: Kamen Rider Ghost
Genre: AU, M/M, school au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7595329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucybeetle/pseuds/lucybeetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Alan always waits for Makoto after school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Isn't Always a Walk in the Park

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guava](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guava/gifts).



> For guava, on the occasion of her graduation.
> 
> This is (as is self-evident) an AU where there are no Kamen Riders, no Ganma World, etc. It's intended to fit into the setting of my fanfic _Beat Rock Love_ but can stand on its own. I wanted to write a little something for guava but unfortunately haven't had a very good evening - apologies that this is so sloppy.

Alan was waiting for Makoto at the school gate.

He’d waited every day for a long, long year, so there was no reason for him to let Makoto down today. It would be another long year before Makoto moved on to high school; but he would never ever in a million years get into Alan’s school so that was the end of their days together, of eating with Alan in the cafeteria, sitting with him in the playground and talking about anything and everything they could think of. Yet despite the poetry that Makoto wrote in the back of his maths book, about how life was all a rotten stinking cheat and the world just a pit of despair, he knew things could be worse. He still spent most weekends with Alan and then, every afternoon when school was over, before Alan went home to his tutor and Makoto went home to not much at all they had _this_.

Makoto had tried to write other poems in the back of that book, recently. He’d got as far as “curls” and “kiss your lips” and then scribbled over it, fearful that someone would find it and make fun of it (as if the other boys didn’t already laugh at him every day.) It was just as well. Alan had a pretty big head. He already knew he was cute, without having one more person tell him so.

“Hello, Specter!” Alan waved, ignoring a few giggles and muttered comments from some of the people nearby. He bounced up and down in his polished shoes; blazer staying immaculately pressed no matter how much Alan wriggled about. He was like Kanon in that respect, while Makoto scowled and sulked and scuffed his shoes and often ruined his clothes playing sports or getting into fights with other boys. If Alan had lived in the children’s home with Makoto and Kanon he would have had no trouble finding foster parents.

“I told you. Stop calling me that,” Makoto mumbled. Specter was his internet username. Online, it was a cooler, tougher persona that he wanted to represent him, to one day _be_ the real him; but he didn’t need Alan shouting it where everyone could hear.

“Don’t be grumpy.” Alan nudged his shoulder against Makoto’s and began chattering away about his school day, his friends, his classmates, his swimming lessons in the school’s private pool. Makoto didn’t really mind that it was difficult to get a word in edgeways. Alan had gone to Makoto’s school until this last academic year, so there wasn’t much for Makoto to talk about. Alan knew exactly what it was like except that it was now a lot lonelier without him there.

Alan offered Makoto a big bag of sweets; round wrapped candies, Alan’s favourites. His penchant for round food was one of his little eccentricities. The boys munched and chewed companionably until they passed the big old tree just before the turning into the park, and then Alan slipped his fingers through Makoto’s because this was the location where Makoto judged them to be far enough away from school that they could blend into the crowd without anyone noticing. They always took the quiet back streets to avoid bullies and the worst kids would usually be _in_ the park by now anyway. Alan’s fingers were covered in sugar and a little sticky, but Makoto gave them a fond squeeze all the same.

“How is Kanon?” asked Alan.

“She’s fine.” Kanon attended the nearby elementary school, and she had a bus to bring her home after classes. When Makoto got home she was often clingy and tearful, wailing about how she couldn’t bear to be separated from him all day, and he’d feel awful even though he had no choice but to leave her while he went to his own school.

“Why don’t you bring her some sweets?”

Alan counted some out of the bag into Makoto’s hand. Makoto said thank you and put them into his pocket for her, even though they weren’t supposed to have sweets at the children’s home and Kanon didn’t always like brushing her teeth so sometimes he couldn’t give her anything that might rot them. She could be very immature for her age despite being almost eight now. Makoto couldn’t pretend he wasn’t worried about what might happen to her when she started middle school and he was no longer there to protect her. Alan didn’t understand these things, because in his family he was the baby, the one spoilt and doted on by his siblings. Well, he and Adel didn’t get along very well but Alia more than made up for that and Alan’s dad adored him as well. It must have been nice to be Alan.

Makoto took several moments to realise that someone was pulling on his arm, and a moment longer for it to dawn on him that this was Alan.

“Specter. _Specter_. MAKOTO!”

“What?” Makoto pulled his arm backwards out of Alan’s grip, “Stop it. You’re hurting me.”

Alan pouted, and Makoto tried not to let it affect him, even though it did, every time - “You weren’t listening to me!”

“What did you say?”

“I asked you what you were thinking about.”

“Nothing,” said Makoto.

“Yes, you were.” Alan’s bottom lip stuck out even further, as if he were trying to make Makoto trip over it.

“I said. _Nothing_.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire," said Alan, his voice taking on an annoying sing-song quality as he chanted. He acted like he was younger than Kanon sometimes.

Makoto said “I’m going to push you into the pond if you don’t shut up,” and he might have said more had Alan’s lips not closed, feather-light, over Makoto’s own.

Alan never did let Makoto down after school.


End file.
